Are STEM careers just for GEEKS?

Imagine sitting in a classroom at a medium-size university, looking around at your peers and realizing that they all have something in common: their demographics. This is what it was like to go to college for me less than a decade ago. There was very little diversity in my computer science and math classes, but it never bothered me much. It was not until I started my career working at technology companies that I realized what the workplace is really like: diverse, fast paced and constantly changing.

Fast forward 10 years or so and you'll find much more diversity in those classes that were previously only for real "geeks." Those STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) classes are still not as diverse as many other college classes, but we're slowly getting there as the interest in STEM careers is growing. And why shouldn't it be? Technology is more accessible than ever. There are a plethora of online resources available for anything from building a mobile app to programming a robot. I recently ordered a Raspberry Pi to keep my own programming skills sharp. Technology really is omnipresent and it's only getting more exciting.

Pursuing a STEM career was one of the best decisions I've ever made. My work here at SAS mostly consists of translating our Customer Intelligence software into business value for both our internal and external customers. Although I do little purely technical work on a day to day basis, my STEM education has provided me with a solid foundation that has proven to be extremely helpful in tasks such as troubleshooting and explaining our software to non-technical people. In Customer Intelligence, it's all about sending targeted messages and offers to the right people, when and where they matter. I love translating this into ROI for our customers as much as I love thinking about the technology behind it all. The latter sometimes brings me back to my computer science classes. The ones I hope that you'll appreciate as much as I have.